


The Shade of a King

by Weissnichtwo (LoudenSwain713)



Series: Ghosts in the Machine [1]
Category: House M.D.
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Angst, Basically everything is the same except House can see ghosts, But also, Gen, Ghosts, Happy Ending, House Being House, It's not just angsty I just don't know what else to tag, Origin Story, Pre-Canon, Sad and Happy, Sad with a Happy Ending, Young Greg House
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27752791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoudenSwain713/pseuds/Weissnichtwo
Summary: “This isn’t working. You’d think there’d be more ghosts at a graveyard, wouldn’t you?"Osamu glances up at him, a retort ready on his tongue, but then he stops. “Greg, look behind you.”Taking in the serious expression on the boy’s face, he turns. A few yards away, an old man is stooping to smell the flowers perched atop a grave. The entrance to the cemetery is visible through his head.“Well,” Greg says aloud. “There’s that.”Or-Basically canon, but what if House can see ghosts?
Relationships: Greg House & Original Child Character(s)
Series: Ghosts in the Machine [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2030089
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	The Shade of a King

The words reach him from very far away. “Do you know where his parents are?”

Greg doesn’t know how to answer. He knows the answer, of course: it’s their date night, and the only reason Osamu had been allowed to go rock climbing was to let them have the house to themselves. Greg doesn’t want to think about the fact that the rock-climbing was his idea.

Annoyance flickers across the face of the doctor in front of him, and Greg contemplates how the man would look with a bruise blooming on his cheek. He failed to save Osamu and now he has the nerve to be _annoyed_? Like his friend, one of his only friends, hasn’t just stopped breathing, like his skin isn’t growing cold in the room across the hall. For the second time, Greg considers screaming, if only to block out the smug condolences the doctor is giving him.

Eventually the man walks away, head shaking like he has any room to be disappointed. Time blends together. He knows that, at one point, a nurse brings him a bowl of soup. Before or after he drinks it, maybe at the same time, he watches as Osamu’s body is rolled away under a sheet. The next moment he’s consciously aware of, his mom is kneeling in front of him, hands gentle on his knees. He sees her mouth move, lips and tongue and teeth forming clear and distinct words, but the meaning escapes him; it’s not until she pulls on his shoulders that he realizes he’s supposed to get up. He rises woodenly, a rickety pier held up by rotting posts. As they leave, his mom’s grip firm around his wrist, sound rushes back in.

The first thing he hears is the keening wail of Osamu’s mother. At least he assumes that’s who it is, because no one else should have the right to be so distraught. The cry writhes in the air, a heavy blanket that muffles the light of the world around it. His steps stumble with the weight of it, though the hold around his wrist keeps him from falling. The next thing that hits him, sharp and quick, is the sound of his shoes. They’re dusty from the climb, laces loose from the frantic journey to the hospital, and the ends of them are crusty with blood. With every step they flick against the floor audibly. _Thwack, thwack, thwack_ . Even once they’re in the car, the sound follows him. _Thwack, thwack, thwack._ He leans forward to tug off his boots, throwing them in the backseat. In the mirror, he can see as they land and topple sideways, lying motionless and ragged where they fell. Greg closes his eyes.

His room is exactly how he’d left it that morning: bed made and light off like the world hasn’t come crashing down around him. It looks wrong, too neat and tidy and _normal_. As soon as he flips the light on, he marches to his desk and sends half of its contents to the floor. The pens and ruler clatter as they hit the ground, and something in Greg’s chest loosens just a little. That’s better. 

Well, it is for a moment, but then the asymmetry digs itself into the back of his head and he sighs in frustration. As he sets the scattered supplies back on his desk, something catches his attention and makes him turn to face the room.

The word curls around his neck like a noose drawn tight, pulling him backwards to choke against the wall in shock. “Greg!”

In front of him, pale with sunken eyes and a leg that's twisted too far to be natural, is Osamu. The boy's gaze is a whirlpool dragging him down into the swirling sea, frantic and frothing. Greg wonders, heart pounding, if he's too old to hide under his parents' covers. But then he blinks, and the room is empty.

At the wake, Greg approaches the coffin with trepidation. The image from last night, Osamu’s desperate gaze, has burned itself into his retinas, but when he reaches the body of the dead boy, his eyes are closed. The expression on his face is peaceful, as if he could be sleeping, though Greg is very aware that isn’t the case. It’s almost enough to forget the hallucination from the night before. Almost.

The funeral is different. Greg knows, logically, that his friend is dead. He knows that Osamu died on the table, can remember sitting on the other side of the wall, seeing the doctors coming out, and _knowing_ , before anything was said, that nothing would be the same. And yet, that line of reasoning seems to diminish as the minutes go by.

The screaming starts shortly after they arrive. Greg watches as Osamu waves his hands in front of his mother’s face, his cries of confusion and distress growing more and more desperate, while the woman sits oblivious. He flickers and disappears, only to resurface a few minutes later, louder than before.

“Mama!” he shouts, flapping back and forth like a fish gasping for breath. “Mama, please! Look at me! Can’t you hear me?”

The sight of it makes his stomach churn, and he leans closer to his mom, shying away from the wailing spirit in hopes to escape the sickening cycle. It doesn’t work, but when the outline of the boy finally fades away towards the end of the service, he sags in relief.

Four minutes later, the screaming starts again.

“Oh shut up!” Greg finally spits at him, bringing his hands to his eyes to block out the sight of his friend pacing around his room.

Osamu, across the room, jerks his head to face him. “You can hear me?” His legs pass through the chair as he stumbles.

He glares. “Of course I can hear you! How could I not? You’ve been shouting all day.” And Greg tries very hard not to think about what it means that his subconscious just spent the entire day torturing him. At what point does talking to yourself, in the form of a dead friend, qualify as a descent into insanity?

“You didn’t say anything!” Osamu accuses.

He doesn’t resist the urge to roll his eyes. “Why would I? You’re in my _head_ , I don’t need to. You’re probably just a reaction to my grief.”

“What grief?” the boy snarls. “I saw you, at the-” His voice loses itself then, trips and tumbles over the words it’s trying to say. “The cemetery,” he finishes softly. “You didn’t even look sad.” His last sentence trails off, unable to properly confront the idea that his friend would not miss him.

Greg feels a burning in his throat and looks away. By the time it’s subsided, and he can drag his eyes to the form of his friend again, there is nothing to see. He is alone in the room.

It is early morning by the time he finally falls asleep.

Greg wakes to the sight of translucent feet stalking across the floor, and he immediately throws his pillow over his face.

The footsteps stop somewhere near the end of his bed.“You kick in your sleep, you know.”

He doesn’t respond.

“If I was in your head, I wouldn’t show up when you’re asleep, right?”

“I didn’t dream about you,” Greg says, words muffled. Which is a lie, but his subconscious would know that.

Instead, there’s silence, stretching so long that he thinks, maybe, the vision is gone. He lifts the pillow cautiously, but no, Osamu is still standing there, his stance drawn inward. “I was right then. You don’t miss me, do you?”

Greg sits up, eyes narrowed. “You’re my friend, of course I do. Why didn’t you know I was lying?”

“You were?”

“I was,” he confirms. He lets himself properly look at Osamu for the first time in days. The boy’s leg hasn’t become any straighter, and the desk on the other side of the room is visible through his stomach, even if it’s a bit blurred. Most hallucinations are realistic, right? Isn’t the point of them that you aren’t supposed to be able to distinguish them from reality? “You thought I was telling the truth?”

“Yeah? I mean, when have you ever lied to me?”

“But if you were me, you’d know I was lying.”

“So I’m not you. Duh,” Osamu says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

“What do you-” he starts to ask, but it’s too late. Greg’s alone again, and, after a moment, he flops back down on his bed. Interesting.

Once the sun’s risen and the house has had enough time to wake up, Greg leaves his room. “Mom?” he asks, walking into the living room. “Can we stop by the cemetery later? I want to pay my respects.” He pauses. “Without everyone else there.”

His mother frowns. “Greg, I don’t want you-”

“Please? I think it would help me...come to terms with it,” he says, not really lying at all.

Blythe sighs, nodding. “Okay, sure. If it’ll help.”

He resists the urge to smile. Step one accomplished.

As he walks to Osamu’s grave, Greg’s confidence begins to dwindle. He hasn’t seen the ghost of his friend, if that’s indeed what this whole situation is, all day, and the thought comes to him again that he could be going insane. Of course, if he _is_ seeing Osamu’s ghost, it stands to reason that he would be seeing other ghosts too. After all, why would the only ghost in existence take the form of a fourteen-year-old boy but no one else, no one more interesting? Logically, it doesn’t make sense.

Of course, logically, ghosts don’t exist, but Greg likes to think he’s past that particular hang-up.

The graveyard is eerie in its silence as Greg settles himself against a tree. Two days ago, he’d been here in a crowd of a hundred, and even the solemn mourning couldn’t cover up the shuffling of two hundred feet. Now, everything is quiet, and the lack of any other human sounds settles uncomfortably beneath his skin.

“I like it, I think.” Osamu appears a few feet away by his own headstone. He’s kneeling in the grass, transparent hands brushing over the stone. “It’s traditional,” he says, like he cares about things like that. “Could do with some more color, maybe.”

“This isn’t working. You’d think there’d be more ghosts at a graveyard, wouldn’t you?”

Osamu doesn’t look up. His hands are passing through the stone now, clenching as they catch on nothing. “Just wait. It took me half a day to show up, remember?” 

“I don’t _have_ half a day. My mom’s waiting in the car.”

Osamu glances up at him, a retort ready on his tongue, but then he stops. “Greg, look behind you.”

Taking in the serious expression on the boy’s face, he turns. A few yards away, an old man is stooping to smell the flowers perched atop a grave. The entrance to the cemetery is visible through his head.

“Well,” Greg says aloud. “There’s that.”

Step two accomplished. Apparently they are _not_ hallucinations.

He blinks, and the old man is gone; a glance behind him confirms that Osamu has disappeared too. Greg breathes out a long, slow exhale, and then he grins. This is going to be fun.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I'm really excited to continue this series and I hope y'all will join me for it!  
> Please leave kudos and comments if you can! <3


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